Joshue Glenn Catubag

PRODUCTION AND OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

MBA 2 Regular | Afternoon Class

A. Human resource and job design

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of labor planning policies (Provide
examples):

a. Holding employment constant

Advantages: A well-thought-out plan for keeping the quality personnel your

business spent effort to find, hire, and train is a key component of a comprehensive
human capital management strategy. Business experts agree that replacing an
employee might cost somewhere between 50% and TWICE that person's annual
income. Additionally, intangible costs like company culture and employee satisfaction
accumulate. Keeping employees on board involves more than just reducing loss to
the company when they depart. It also provides chances to raise a number of
important indicators' performance for the organization.

Disadvantages: We are all aware of how time- and money-consuming it is to

replace departing personnel. We are aware of how much more effective it is to keep
important staff in place as opposed to constantly searching for fresh hires for these
positions. Here are several drawbacks’ organizations may encounter in the event that
employee retention is high and turnover is low. (1.) Change is more challenging to
implement when people remain unchanged. (2.) Negative employees remain on the
job longer, giving them more chances to spread the negativity. (3.) Underperforming
or unproductive employees tend to remain on the job longer. This not only indicates
that the company is not operating at its peak production, but it also suggests that it
will need to invest more time in personnel management and discipline.

Example: There is a union of employees at my former workplace (Pepsi Cola

Products Phils., Inc.), which I can state this an example. A union is a group of workers
that advocates for its members and works to improve things like their pay and
working conditions. They both affect the economy in the same way. They spread false
information about the group and recruit more people, some of whom are ineffective
because they attend meetings and sessions during working hours. They often think
they are better than other workers because they are a so-called labor union, which is
a name that has been misrepresented and exploited unfairly. Some of them,
particularly its leaders, have worked for the organization for more than 15 years, and
many are currently in their tenth. Since they advised their subordinate not to
participate in several HR events, I can assume that they are senior and do not believe
in training and growth. Therefore; most of them are useless.
 b. Follow demand
By matching direct labor costs to productivity, this common employment
stability policy ensures that the costs and expenses incurred in manufacturing are
effective. However, it has costs associated with hiring and/or firing, dubious job
security, and premium wages. Here, labor is viewed as a variable cost.

An excellent illustration is when a maker of spaghetti experiences high demand

from October to December and matches demand accurately to match labor costs.

B. Mini-case

1. In general, several factors related to work design can be identified as impacting the work
environment, including job task and meaning, performance requirements, opportunities
for growth, independence and responsibility, status, interpersonal relationships, and
company culture. Several essential aspects of the design of the work system have been
impacted by the modifications in how the hotplate assembly process is organized. Before,
employees could not see the results of their job and had no personal accountability for
the hotplates - the meaning of the work and independence has improved. The
lengthening and diversification of the job cycle contributed to reducing the amount of
routine work. There are now some opportunities for reward: if workers could gauge the
success of their assembly outputs, they may feel more rewarded as the proportion of
rejected plates fell. Interpersonal connections may have improved because the new job
design made it possible to prevent problems that could have occurred in the past when
workers made mistakes at the start of the assembly line and made others wait. Lastly,
employees believed that their input mattered to the organization when creating a new
decision. Their involvement in the decision-making process most likely increased morale
and job satisfaction.
2. The causes of absenteeism at the workplace can be divided into two groups: personal
factors (attitude, age, seniority, and gender) and workplace factors (job stress, work
routine, and job satisfaction). The work design changes have removed and reduced all
three possible workplace factors. Job stress was reduced since the workers received more
autonomy and gained more recognition related to the results of their work. The high level
 of job routine has been significantly reduced, and workers could control the results of
their assembly process, which they could not do in the original work design. Such factors
determine the importance of the work and associated morale as task significance, skill
variety, and task identity. In the original work design, task significance was comparatively
low, skill variety and task identity were shallow, and it is not surprising that work morale
was down as well. In the new design, task significance was enormously increased, as well
as skill variety. Now the workers could identify their hotplates, and thus task identity was
improved, too. The factors mentioned above caused the increase in morale.
3. The significant changes in the situation were the delivery of control over the quality of
the assembly process to workers, an increase in the job cycle and reduction of
monotonous work, and improved job responsibility, independency, and satisfaction. The
change controlled by the manager allowed workers to choose the method of assembling
the hotplates (individually or using the assembly line). Thus, the managers have
introduced the idea of individual assembly. The managers also controlled training
sessions, and the workers influenced all other factors: the choice of the form of the
assembly, quality and speed of assembly, and even final inspection. Overall, this example
shows that providing independence and responsibility for the own results of work has a
highly positive effect on job satisfaction, morale, and productivity.
4. The workers have been trained in all the hotplate subassemblies in the individual
assembly line. This has enabled them to gain experience in hotplate production;
therefore, if the workers are to become teamwork again, the production will increase and
achieve efficiency. Likewise, the speed of giving output will improve with the new
cooperation since each individual was used to high-speed production that had increased
output. Because of quality production gained at the individual products, the workers will
still produce a higher quality hotplate than the personal level. Otherwise, the new group
work assembly can reduce production because some workers may feel that they are not
recognized for their work and will find no reason to reach high performance when on
teams. Some workers will exert less effort on collective tasks than on individual tasks. The
result will be a lack of drive to effectively produce hotplates as a team, thus having a weak
team with low production.
C. Problem
1.

JOB Processing Time Due Date

A 2 5

B 8 8

C 6 12

D 4 10

E 1 4

Span 21

FIRST COME FIRST SERVED

A B C D E
Average Flow Time 13.8
Average of jobs in the system 3.29
Average Lateness 6.6
Utilization Rate 30%
SHORTEST PROCESSING TIME
E A D C B
Average Flow Time 9
Average of jobs in the system 2.14
Average Lateness 2.8
Utilization Rate 47%

EARLIEST DUE DATE

E A B D C
Average Flow Time 19.2
Average of jobs in the system 4.57
Average Lateness 11.4
Utilization Rate 22%
Gantt Chart

FCFS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Processing a a b b b b b b b b c c c c c c d d d d e
Due E A B D C

SPT 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
Processing e a a d d d d c c c c c c b b b b b b b b
Due E A B D C

EDD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42
Processing e e e e a a a a a b b b b b b b b d d d d d d d d d d c c c c c c c c c c c c
Due E A B D C

JOB PT DD JOB FCFS SPT EDD

A 2 5 A 0 0 4
B 8 8 B 2 13 9
C 6 12 C 4 1 27
D 4 10 D 10 0 17
E 1 4 E 17 0 0
33 14 57

2. RECOMMENDATIONS:

The rule that excels in all criteria is the one with the least processing time (SPT). It has
the lowest average number of jobs and the highest utilization rate in the system. Since
the organization has the lowest average number of jobs in the system, it is operating at
its best while simplifying the job flow.

Additionally, it has the lowest average lateness, which means that the likelihood of the
company having to pay significant fines for delayed delivery or completion of target
demand is the lowest. costs.